4. How do you know when to correct a child’s
error and when to let it go? How do you try to prevent the errors?

In
Dual
Language Instruction: A Handbook for Enriched Instruction
(Cloud,
Genesee, & Hamayan, 2000, pp. 78-79), the authors suggest that teachers
always keep the focus on meaningful communication and demonstrate genuine
interest in what students are attempting to communicate in the language of
instruction. Yet some researchers (e.g.,
Lyster,
1998) have noted that
form-focused intervention
may be
required in order for students to change their communicative behavior and that
soft
correction
(e.g.,
gentle feedback and modeling the correct form) may not be sufficient to change
students’ language output. This would be especially true if students’ errors are
already
fossilized or entrenched in their
speech patterns.

In
form-focused intervention, students are made explicitly aware of an error. They
attempt to correct the mistake themselves, and once they are aware of the error
and how to correct it, the teacher provides many opportunities for practice so
that the new behavior is internalized.

As a
general rule, when the number of errors made is quite high (in the
early
stages of proficiency), correction is low
and the focus is on the meaning of the communication. Once errors naturally
decrease (at later stages of proficiency), teachers make learners aware of the
remaining errors in their speech that they have not been able to work out on
their own. Writing is a good place to work on errors because they are more
visible. Effective teachers always have a particular focus of intervention in
mind. Rather than pointing out every error in a child’s speech or text, they
focus on a feature of language that is giving the student particular difficulty.
They might teach a mini-lesson on that feature and then provide practice
opportunities and continuing feedback until the target feature or pattern is
fully acquired.

Teachers in the
Key
Elementary 50/50 immersion program in Arlington, VA believe that it is
impossible and counterproductive to attempt to correct every error students
make. If, for instance, the student is explaining her mathematical reasoning but
her flow of speech is constantly disrupted by the teacher, she may be
discouraged from participating in class the next time. Or the teacher and
students may lose track of the content goals for the lesson.

At the
same time, teachers at Key believe that correcting the students’ language is
important, and it should be done early on to prevent the fossilization of
errors. To do this, teachers need to have clear language goals for the students
– they need to understand
what
should
be corrected and
when.
Curriculum guides such as the Arlington (VA) Public Schools Curriculum Framework (link coming soon) provide
teachers with the specific language goals students need to develop at each grade
level. By having both a content goal and a language goal for the unit, teachers
can zero in on grammatical structures that are targeted in the unit of study and
concentrate on correcting only those structures during the content lesson. This
allows teachers to maximize language learning without losing track of the
content goals.